Spiritshift - aggregated info

[MaxQuest]

Had a few questions about spiritshift in Deadfire, but couldn't find the answers.

So made a few tests myself and here is the aggregated info (for beta3):

(note: all screenshots are made at lvl 1 and 10 str/int/res)

 

Spiritshift Bear (Shifter):

- ability/armor/claws:

 

 

- active ability: Terrifying Roar:

 

 

 

Spiritshift Boar (Shifter):

- ability/armor/claws:

 

 

- note: although it shows 0 raw damage every 3s, it actually damages for [4 + 10% per power level] per tick; (e.g. each tick deals 4 dmg at power level 1; 6 dmg at power level 5)

- note: this raw dot does not stack with itself

- note: boar regeneration equals [4 + 10% per power level]. I.e. it heals for 4.4 / 40 = 11% of max hp at ch.lvl 1 / power.lvl 1. And 7.6 / 230 = 3.3% of max hp at ch.lvl 20 / power.lvl 9. (* these values are for 10 mig/res)

 

Spiritshift Cat (Shifter):

- ability/armor/claws:

 

 

- active ability: Cat Flurry Attack:

 

 

- note: cancelling or changing form does not clear Flurry Attack buff.

 

Spiritshift Stag (Shifter):

- ability/armor/claws:

 

 

- active ability: Druid Stag Carnage (yes for some reason it is an active, not passive atm):

 

 

- note: druid does not have passive carnage. He can make only 1 such attack and it deals really low damage at the moment.

 

Spiritshift Wolf (Shifter):

- ability/armor/claws:

 

 

- active ability: Knock Down:

 

 

 

Spiritshift Storm Blight (Fury):

- ability/armor/claws:

 

 

- active abilities: Shifting Storm (Teleport) and Storm's Rage (single target dmg+stun):

 

 

 

---

Spiritshift duration:

- base duration is 15s. It gets a bonus +5% per power level; and this bonus stacks multiplicatively with INT.

- shifter has a longer base spiritshift duration. It is equal to 22s.

- fury gets it's spiritshift duration increased by 4s when dealing a killing blow.

 

While shifted you do not benefit of your items (they are unequipped). But you can still benefit from your racials.

 

Shifter gets healed for 20 + 5 per power level health at the spiritshift end. He can end his form prematurely. Or switch to another one.

While shifted, shifter cannot cast druid/priest/wizard spells, use powers or invocations. But he can use active martial abilities and scrolls.

 

Lifegiver gets:

+2 power level with rejuvenation spells

+5 power level while spiritshifted (so the bonus is +7)

-5 power level after spiritshift has ended (so the malus is -3)

 

---

What's possibly wrong with spiritshift:

- At the moment, Spiritshift Hide get's +1 AR bonus on character level 5 and 9. Personally I would expect it to be on the same level when you can enchant your armor by 1 tier up, i.e: 4,8,12,16

- Elemental Corpus doesn't get such an AR bonus, i.e. it doesn't scale at all.

- Elemental Claws are currently marked as two-handed. Maybe that's an oversight? As the plural form and the model itself point for dual-wielding.

- Claws' damage does not scale. Or at least it's not displayed in their tooltips.

- Boar regeneration and shifter healing (on spiritshift end) scale a bit poorly. And will be of x3-x4 less usefulness for a druid at max level (unless there are some really strong +healing modifiers in the game).

- If a druid while spiritshifted tries to cast Scroll of Kalakoth's Minor Blights he usually gets stuck with the cast animation, and the scroll casting never finishes. But in rare cases when he succeeds (example) he can't auto-attack at all.

- Animalistic spiritshift forms are still to large in inventory screen

- Storm Blight form could use a female model for female characters

- Spiritshift Stag form can deal only 1 carnage attack, during which main target takes normal damage, while adjacent ones just 1-5 slash dmg.

- Spiritshift Cat form description mentions: "the cat spiritshift has a naturally fast attack and can burst into even faster attacks". This was correct for beta1, but is not longer true in beta3, because cat claws are now as slow as others.

Edited March 25, 2018 by MaxQuest

[SaruNi]

- If a druid while spiritshifted tries to cast Scroll of Kalakoth's Minor Blights he usually gets stuck with the cast animation, and the scroll casting never finishes. But in rare cases when he succeeds (example) he can't auto-attack at all.

 

Can a druid/priest cast Spiritual Weapon while spiritshifted to apply the corrode lash to spells (for example, Fury/Priest combining the wildstrike lash while shifted with the spiritual weapon lash...)?

 

Answer: no, Firebrand and Spiritual Weapon can't be cast while spiritshifted. Presumably the same applies to Wizard summoned weapons, and the scroll loophole is a bug.

 

Too bad, it would make Firebrand slightly less terrible and Fury/Priest offensive caster non-suboptimal. And using summoned weapons with spiritshift would not be OP, would it?

Edited March 26, 2018 by SaruNi

[Anubis313]

Thanks for this man.  Was looking for something like this.

 

Now is there weapons and modals list somewhere?

[MaxQuest]

Now is there weapons and modals list somewhere?

This one?

[axedice]

I guess there is no spells/feats list for people who don't have the beta...

[Wormerine]

I guess there is no spells/feats list for people who don't have the beta...

To be honest there isn’t even a spells/feats list for people in beta. The one we have is outdated and incomplete.

[MaxQuest]

I guess there is no spells/feats list for people who don't have the beta...

You can take a look at fextralife wiki. It's not complete, nor completely accurate... but at least something.

[Anubis313]

 

Now is there weapons and modals list somewhere?

This one?

Thanks Max

[LordFey]

Tried out Ascetic (Shifter/Monk) in hopes of building the ultimate feral damage dealer (Swift Strike in combination with Cat Flurry Attack) till I found out that claws are now considered as a one handed weapon... ? With that seemingly minor change, they made the whole point of the Ascetic multiclass negligible, in my opinion.

Edited March 27, 2018 by LordFey

[JerekKruger]

In MaxQuest's screenshots it shows the recovery time for claws as 2.8s (4s base, -30% Dual-Wield). Doesn't that mean they're dual weapons?

[MaxQuest]

Spiritshifted druid (cat, bear, boar, stag, wolf)... dual-wields 2 one-handed weapons (claws)

 

Spiritshifted fury (storm blight)... wields 1 two-handed weapon (elemental claws)

 

P.S. Swift strikes is getting suppresed by Cat Flurry Attack.

[Soulmojo]

What's possibly wrong with spiritshift:

- At the moment, Spiritshift Hide get's +1 AR bonus on character level 5 and 9. Personally I would expect it to be on the same level when you can enchant your armor by 1 tier up, i.e: 4,8,12,16

- Elemental Corpus doesn't get such an AR bonus, i.e. it doesn't scale at all.

- Elemental Claws are currently marked as two-handed. Maybe that's an oversight? As the plural form and the model itself point for dual-wielding.

- Claws' damage does not scale. Or at least it's not displayed in their tooltips.

- Boar regeneration and shifter healing (on spiritshift end) scale a bit poorly. And will be of x3-x4 less usefulness for a druid at max level (unless there are some really strong +healing modifiers in the game).

- If a druid while spiritshifted tries to cast Scroll of Kalakoth's Minor Blights he usually gets stuck with the cast animation, and the scroll casting never finishes. But in rare cases when he succeeds (example) he can't auto-attack at all.

- Animalistic spiritshift forms are still to large in inventory screen

- Storm Blight form could use a female model for female characters

- Spiritshift Stag form can deal only 1 carnage attack, during which main target takes normal damage, while adjacent ones just 1-5 slash dmg.

- Spiritshift Cat form description mentions: "the cat spiritshift has a naturally fast attack and can burst into even faster attacks". This was correct for beta1, but is not longer true in beta3, because cat claws are now as slow as others. 

 

 

Good collection, here is what I personally think is problematic (in addtion to yours):

 

Lack of shifted actives and passives. In many ways you give up a lot to be in shifted form, and usually you have nothing to add to your shifted form. No real progression. If you are shifter you also give up spells, which would be fine if there would be alternative to look into when shifted. when I think of druid spiritshift improvement ranger pet passives and active abilites come to mind. 

 

Secondly there is the issue of armor. In a way it is stronger because the hide has no inherent weakness but it is lower than armor.

 

Thirdly, the form doesn't get deflection bonus, which in my opinion druid needs badly. No bonus from items.

 

Lastly one my biggest pain is the form upgrade is auto level instead being tied to the power source leaving gaps in progression. I understand the design choice, it is for multiclasses, it's just it comes too large periods of time.

 

++

I find it funny that as a pure shifter, there is the mandatory 1 spell you have to choose, and you can choose one elemental damage path, and 3 defense passive. The rest has to be spells, which you will not use, since you will spend most of your time shifted. So either you don't use spells, and be in shifted form being an auto attack bot, or you cast spells and don't be in shifted form. But if you choose the latter, then why choose shifter in the first place? So go multiclass. But why do I have to multiclass to get useful?  Shifter is very redundant and is not viable from a pure class perspective.

Edited March 29, 2018 by Soulmojo

[JerekKruger]

I find it funny that as a pure shifter, there is the mandatory 1 spell you have to choose, and you can choose one elemental damage path, and 3 defense passive. The rest has to be spells, which you will not use, since you will spend most of your time shifted. So either you don't use spells, and be in shifted form being an auto attack bot, or you cast spells and don't be in shifted form. But if you choose the latter, then why choose shifter in the first place? So go multiclass. But why do I have to multiclass to get useful?  Shifter is very redundant and is not viable from a pure class perspective.

 

Yeah I think Obsidian missed a trick with the Shifter subclass. Instead of giving you access to all five forms they should have made shifting a modal and added a few abilities and passives that only work whilst shifted. As it is currently it's just a bit of a mess. It's not a bad subclass since the healing on shifting is pretty useful, but it isn't particularly interesting or fun and feels thrown together.

Edited March 29, 2018 by JerekKruger

[Soulmojo]

 

I find it funny that as a pure shifter, there is the mandatory 1 spell you have to choose, and you can choose one elemental damage path, and 3 defense passive. The rest has to be spells, which you will not use, since you will spend most of your time shifted. So either you don't use spells, and be in shifted form being an auto attack bot, or you cast spells and don't be in shifted form. But if you choose the latter, then why choose shifter in the first place? So go multiclass. But why do I have to multiclass to get useful?  Shifter is very redundant and is not viable from a pure class perspective.

 

Yeah I think Obsidian missed a trick with the Shifter subclass. Instead of giving you access to all five forms they should have made shifting a modal and added a few abilities and passives that only work whilst shifted. As it is currently it's just a bit of a mess. It's not a bad subclass since the healing on shifting is pretty useful, but it isn't particularly interesting or fun and feels thrown together.

 

 

Exactly. And if not modal, at least unlockable with form upgrades. Duration, defense, resists, speed...mauling attacks, bleed attacks take your pick. Anything really in which you can put your points and be more useful as a pure class.

Sad to say that if you want to be a melee shapeshifter you have to multiclass with paladin, monk or barbarian, or rogue because only then are the lackings somewhat filled.

And this hilarious to me but I always ask myself then why take druid? Any combination of the above four means more variety and versatility. For roleplay purposes maybe?

Edited March 29, 2018 by Soulmojo

[MaxQuest]

Sad to say that if you want to be a melee shapeshifter you have to multiclass with paladin, monk or barbarian, or rogue because only then are the lackings somewhat filled.

And this hilarious to me but I always ask myself then why take druid? Any combination of the above four means more variety and versatility. For roleplay purposes maybe?

Looking at druid's spells and abilities from beta3, I'd say one takes druid for:

- Moonlight, Moonwell, Nature's Balm and Form of the Delemgam; or

- Taste of the Hunt; or

- Touch of Rot, Insect Swarm, Returning Storm, Relentless Storms and Plague of Insects (as backup if enemies cannot be stunned);

and also Roar + Cat Flurry.

 

I am for example thinking of taking two druid/wayfarer frontliners. But haven't decided what subclass yet to take: lifegiver, shifter or none.

 

But yeah, there is little point in taking [single-class phys-dps shifter] at the moment at all.

I think there could be more incentive for pure-shifter, if they got some sort of upgrade to their forms at around rank 8+. Maybe Dire forms? with bonus defenses and 2nd effects attached to their claws?

Also there could be a rank 6 talent, that unlocks 1 additional active per spiritshift form. This would give a phys-dps-built shifter more stuff to do, and have a more interesting playstyle than just auto-attacking.

 

At the same time would note that Shifter can also be played as a spell-caster of sort. Start with cat form -> use it's cat flurry -> shift to bear -> roar -> shift to humanoid (1h+shield) -> start casting stuff (and only shift+immediate cancel if you need the heal)

Edited March 29, 2018 by MaxQuest